The US has bit of a habit installing 'friends' who due to being screw-ups eventually get overthrown or otherwise replaced by someone *decidedly* less accommodating, doesn't it?
Charles, the Mossadegh biography alone earned the read — and the Kermit Roosevelt thread pulls the whole architecture into clear, unsparing focus.
I grew up knowing the broad strokes of Iranian history — Persia, as the people themselves prefer — and watched the Shah’s unraveling in real time as a teenager in Germany. The granular detail of the Anglo-Persian Agreement, the constitutional trickery around Zahedi, the CIA’s own report calling the first coup attempt an abject collapse — those layers sharpened something I carried as vague outrage into actual documented fury.
Every convulsion since 1953 traces to one decision: Western powers decided Iranian oil belonged to them, hired someone to dismantle a functioning democracy, and handed the rubble to fundamentalists. The ayatollahs rose from the rubble, full stop.
130 years of Western meddling runs on one engine — money, power, control over natural resources. Dress it in anticommunism, counterterrorism, regional stability — the fuel stays the same. Persia paid. Its people keep paying.
Thank you, Jay. I appreciate your perspectiveve more than you can know.
The American approach to Iran has appalled me for years. Both Dems and Republicans. It's stunning to me because its people generally wanted what they thought we had. This will probably change under Trump. They've been disillusioned and disappointed before, but this experience will harden their frustrations. What if we reached out with a helping hand for once? Offered tulips instead of swords?
I look at politicians the world over, and I realize, "Okay, well... The profession does not attract our best and brightest." But here in the U.S., it's gotten ridiculous to the point that it is all self-satire.
Unfortunately yes, yet it’s not so great in Europe as well. And I think education and knowledge of history and philosophy unfortunately has a lot to do with it. I am for two years now, because I fell the discrepancies between different systems so directly in my life, mapping the big picture, were, damn it, did it start. And your Iran history has now given me both a new angle and another confirmation. Thank you for that.
Thanks. I was tempted to try AI for research again like I did with the Trump crime article, but I just can't relinquish control in that way. I needed specific answers. Easier to just Google, although they now have that annoying AI blurb at the top of results, so now you have to scroll down half a page to get at stuff. I'll try Duck next time I have a ton of stuff to look up.
Didn't see any typos and I looked up the word firman. Great article Charles, reading it and thinking about life back then vs now it feels like a different country but it's not. In ‘77 when you were sipping pints I was a young airmen in basic training. I saw these foreign soldiers being trained across the parade grounds doing goose steps, another trainee told me that they were the Shah’s Royal soldiers. I was very naive and had no idea who the Shah was let alone where Iran was. Later I would come to learn a lot more, especially about the dreaded Savak.
Thanks, Charles. I originally planned to mention the "firman," but forgot and instead just said that the CIA performed some constitutional trickery to lay their claims to the PM's office and throw Mossadegh out. The firman was the instrument they used to do that.
When I was a young lad, being an air force pilot was the only military service I was at all interested in. My eyes said no, however. They're even worse now.
I know it's not relevant to the point of your article here, but at what point in Iran's leadership power struggles did Pres. Eisenhower start the Atoms of Peace program (mid-1950's)? He gave our nuclear "secrets" and training to a friendly Iranian gov't, in order to further their economic growth... in exchange for 40% of their state oil production. So, under another leader years later, it was decided that they needed nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Just curious as to how this happened with Kermit working covertly in the background...
It probably **is** relevant. But I don't have an answer for that, or even a guess. :-)
As for Kermit himself, he kind of just entered the lobbying scene after leaving the CIA (1958). Worked for Gulf Oil, lobbied a bit, but didn't seem super involved with American governments (although I've watched enough spy movies to know these guys never retire!).
Color me surprised. They ALL seem to wind up as corporate board members or lobbyists! That's why I can't figure out why they stay so long in our legislature and agencies, when the money is better telling all the secrets they've learned 🙄 Thanks for your response!
Actually I don't think even the Iran regime itself has been "attacking" the US at all. It has been funding groups that launch terrorist attacks on other countries, but not even 911 involved Iran according to the 9/11 Commission. Iran and Al Qaeda have always had an uneasy relationship. The IRGC has been involved in training groups and plotting assassination attempts, but so has the CIA. Who knows if it has stopped.
The only actual government aggressor in the region is...Israel. I've wondered whether its attack on Iran is actually extraneous to its actual goal, which is to expand its territory into Lebanon, not to mention the West Bank and Gaza. Basically, keep Iran too busy to actively support Hezbollah.
I am not being "pro terrorist" here. ALL terrorism should be squashed whether is it in aid of those we consider "bad guys' or "good guys." Don't forget the CIA worked with lots of terrorist groups in S America during the Cold war.
As I was preparing this post for a cross post to Medium, I realized I needed to make an important change, thanks to your comment (this is a big reason why I love my readers — their comments). I didn't realize that I had repeated the use of the word, "attack" in my initial reply about the Republican argument. I made a subtle but important change:
"To be clear, Iran has not been attacking us for 47 years. The radicalized, fundamentalist, theocratic dictatorship that took over Iran 47 years ago, which calls itself the Islamic Republic of Iran, has been the source of our discontent."
Because, as you said, the IR has not been "attacking" us for 47 years. They've been a thorn in our side, but that's not the same. Thanks again.
Thanks, Susan. I thought I was responding to this earlier, but I made the terrible mistake of using the Substack app on my phone (this rarely goes well for me, lol), so I'm reposting...
I can't come to the defense of a regime that is involved with repression to the extent the IR is. But you're also correct I think in pointing out that they don't really pick fights with us so much as they do Israel, mostly through Hezbollah. There's really not a lot of sweet, kind leaders in that part of the world. The Abrahamic Wars have consumed the middle east for 2000 years. So there's a new mega bad guy ever generation or so. Currently, there are a bunch of them.
I don't think you're being pro-terrorist at all. Great points.
Thanks. You are right, this is an age old problem. More than 2000 years if you believe all the biblical wars--from the battle of Jericho to now. And all of them, if you are a Bible believer, descendants of Noah. If climate change is the equivalent eventually of the Flood, maybe that will solve the whole thing.
I'm not trying to defend the IRGC, who is really running things now. It is just that "attacked" is an emotion-laden word that too many people will think means something like 9-11 and thus our attack on them is true self defense. You can't really attack a country, and all its civilians, for something non-governmental groups did, however funded. That won't stop terrorists themselves.
I give credit to the American people, however, who if the polls are correct aren't buying this crap.
I could have made it clearer that "attacked" is not my word. It's how the Trumpanzees couch their "arguments," such as they are.
For me, as a Christian who understands that Bible translations are patriarchal in nature and not the final "Word" that Christian clergymen (they've been mostly men during these 2000 years) say they are, I would argue that the Abrahamic Wars are based on various interpretations of various religious texts: Islamic, Judaic, and Christian. All arguing over which version of God, as interpreted by (mostly) men, is better.
This guy has a much better take on where I stand on that than I can provide:
Oh, I knew it was a trumpian word. And I have often mused about the various meanings of God. I can remember when the words “under God” were added to the pledge. And because I come from a mixed Catholic/Protestant family, I actually wondered “which God?” (My bigoted Catholic grandmother insisted that the Protestant side weren’t really Cristian; she also thought Luther was a woman, mixing up Lutheranism with Christian Scientists) And as I became familiar with Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism. I wondered even more.
I’m not Christian, but I am a proponent of what Dylan Thomas called “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Something is out there that may well be more than the laws of physics, but it seems hubristic to think S/He really cares about our squabbles.
interesting question as to what exactly an atheist is. Does it simply mean not believing that whatever power there is doesn’t actually care about us personally?
The US has bit of a habit installing 'friends' who due to being screw-ups eventually get overthrown or otherwise replaced by someone *decidedly* less accommodating, doesn't it?
Charles, the Mossadegh biography alone earned the read — and the Kermit Roosevelt thread pulls the whole architecture into clear, unsparing focus.
I grew up knowing the broad strokes of Iranian history — Persia, as the people themselves prefer — and watched the Shah’s unraveling in real time as a teenager in Germany. The granular detail of the Anglo-Persian Agreement, the constitutional trickery around Zahedi, the CIA’s own report calling the first coup attempt an abject collapse — those layers sharpened something I carried as vague outrage into actual documented fury.
Every convulsion since 1953 traces to one decision: Western powers decided Iranian oil belonged to them, hired someone to dismantle a functioning democracy, and handed the rubble to fundamentalists. The ayatollahs rose from the rubble, full stop.
130 years of Western meddling runs on one engine — money, power, control over natural resources. Dress it in anticommunism, counterterrorism, regional stability — the fuel stays the same. Persia paid. Its people keep paying.
Thank you, Jay. I appreciate your perspectiveve more than you can know.
The American approach to Iran has appalled me for years. Both Dems and Republicans. It's stunning to me because its people generally wanted what they thought we had. This will probably change under Trump. They've been disillusioned and disappointed before, but this experience will harden their frustrations. What if we reached out with a helping hand for once? Offered tulips instead of swords?
I look at politicians the world over, and I realize, "Okay, well... The profession does not attract our best and brightest." But here in the U.S., it's gotten ridiculous to the point that it is all self-satire.
Unfortunately yes, yet it’s not so great in Europe as well. And I think education and knowledge of history and philosophy unfortunately has a lot to do with it. I am for two years now, because I fell the discrepancies between different systems so directly in my life, mapping the big picture, were, damn it, did it start. And your Iran history has now given me both a new angle and another confirmation. Thank you for that.
THANK YOU!! I knew most of this but the background stories wow. Now I know why Kermit may have taken the fatal leap
It's going to take a while to process all of this information. A lot of hard work and research went into this article. Thank you for posting it.
Thanks. I was tempted to try AI for research again like I did with the Trump crime article, but I just can't relinquish control in that way. I needed specific answers. Easier to just Google, although they now have that annoying AI blurb at the top of results, so now you have to scroll down half a page to get at stuff. I'll try Duck next time I have a ton of stuff to look up.
DDG is far less intrusive than Google while it uses Google’s data set.
Didn't see any typos and I looked up the word firman. Great article Charles, reading it and thinking about life back then vs now it feels like a different country but it's not. In ‘77 when you were sipping pints I was a young airmen in basic training. I saw these foreign soldiers being trained across the parade grounds doing goose steps, another trainee told me that they were the Shah’s Royal soldiers. I was very naive and had no idea who the Shah was let alone where Iran was. Later I would come to learn a lot more, especially about the dreaded Savak.
Thanks, Charles. I originally planned to mention the "firman," but forgot and instead just said that the CIA performed some constitutional trickery to lay their claims to the PM's office and throw Mossadegh out. The firman was the instrument they used to do that.
When I was a young lad, being an air force pilot was the only military service I was at all interested in. My eyes said no, however. They're even worse now.
If I could do it all over again, load master would be the sought-after AFSC!
I know it's not relevant to the point of your article here, but at what point in Iran's leadership power struggles did Pres. Eisenhower start the Atoms of Peace program (mid-1950's)? He gave our nuclear "secrets" and training to a friendly Iranian gov't, in order to further their economic growth... in exchange for 40% of their state oil production. So, under another leader years later, it was decided that they needed nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Just curious as to how this happened with Kermit working covertly in the background...
It probably **is** relevant. But I don't have an answer for that, or even a guess. :-)
As for Kermit himself, he kind of just entered the lobbying scene after leaving the CIA (1958). Worked for Gulf Oil, lobbied a bit, but didn't seem super involved with American governments (although I've watched enough spy movies to know these guys never retire!).
Color me surprised. They ALL seem to wind up as corporate board members or lobbyists! That's why I can't figure out why they stay so long in our legislature and agencies, when the money is better telling all the secrets they've learned 🙄 Thanks for your response!
IKR??? Take the money!
Thanks for the info on How the Shah Came to Be.
Actually I don't think even the Iran regime itself has been "attacking" the US at all. It has been funding groups that launch terrorist attacks on other countries, but not even 911 involved Iran according to the 9/11 Commission. Iran and Al Qaeda have always had an uneasy relationship. The IRGC has been involved in training groups and plotting assassination attempts, but so has the CIA. Who knows if it has stopped.
The only actual government aggressor in the region is...Israel. I've wondered whether its attack on Iran is actually extraneous to its actual goal, which is to expand its territory into Lebanon, not to mention the West Bank and Gaza. Basically, keep Iran too busy to actively support Hezbollah.
I am not being "pro terrorist" here. ALL terrorism should be squashed whether is it in aid of those we consider "bad guys' or "good guys." Don't forget the CIA worked with lots of terrorist groups in S America during the Cold war.
As I was preparing this post for a cross post to Medium, I realized I needed to make an important change, thanks to your comment (this is a big reason why I love my readers — their comments). I didn't realize that I had repeated the use of the word, "attack" in my initial reply about the Republican argument. I made a subtle but important change:
"To be clear, Iran has not been attacking us for 47 years. The radicalized, fundamentalist, theocratic dictatorship that took over Iran 47 years ago, which calls itself the Islamic Republic of Iran, has been the source of our discontent."
Because, as you said, the IR has not been "attacking" us for 47 years. They've been a thorn in our side, but that's not the same. Thanks again.
Readers make the best editors. :-)
Thanks, Susan. I thought I was responding to this earlier, but I made the terrible mistake of using the Substack app on my phone (this rarely goes well for me, lol), so I'm reposting...
I can't come to the defense of a regime that is involved with repression to the extent the IR is. But you're also correct I think in pointing out that they don't really pick fights with us so much as they do Israel, mostly through Hezbollah. There's really not a lot of sweet, kind leaders in that part of the world. The Abrahamic Wars have consumed the middle east for 2000 years. So there's a new mega bad guy ever generation or so. Currently, there are a bunch of them.
I don't think you're being pro-terrorist at all. Great points.
Thanks. You are right, this is an age old problem. More than 2000 years if you believe all the biblical wars--from the battle of Jericho to now. And all of them, if you are a Bible believer, descendants of Noah. If climate change is the equivalent eventually of the Flood, maybe that will solve the whole thing.
I'm not trying to defend the IRGC, who is really running things now. It is just that "attacked" is an emotion-laden word that too many people will think means something like 9-11 and thus our attack on them is true self defense. You can't really attack a country, and all its civilians, for something non-governmental groups did, however funded. That won't stop terrorists themselves.
I give credit to the American people, however, who if the polls are correct aren't buying this crap.
I could have made it clearer that "attacked" is not my word. It's how the Trumpanzees couch their "arguments," such as they are.
For me, as a Christian who understands that Bible translations are patriarchal in nature and not the final "Word" that Christian clergymen (they've been mostly men during these 2000 years) say they are, I would argue that the Abrahamic Wars are based on various interpretations of various religious texts: Islamic, Judaic, and Christian. All arguing over which version of God, as interpreted by (mostly) men, is better.
This guy has a much better take on where I stand on that than I can provide:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-193988545
Oh, I knew it was a trumpian word. And I have often mused about the various meanings of God. I can remember when the words “under God” were added to the pledge. And because I come from a mixed Catholic/Protestant family, I actually wondered “which God?” (My bigoted Catholic grandmother insisted that the Protestant side weren’t really Cristian; she also thought Luther was a woman, mixing up Lutheranism with Christian Scientists) And as I became familiar with Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism. I wondered even more.
I’m not Christian, but I am a proponent of what Dylan Thomas called “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Something is out there that may well be more than the laws of physics, but it seems hubristic to think S/He really cares about our squabbles.
I find it interesting that the atheists I've known are more moral than most "religious people." "What god would allow THIS?" the atheist often muses.
interesting question as to what exactly an atheist is. Does it simply mean not believing that whatever power there is doesn’t actually care about us personally?